Here's some of the stuff we've been up to...

LEGOLAND is for lego lovers. It is geared for kids aged 2 to 12. Is it Disney? No. LEGOLAND is not Disney, and it doesn’t try to be. Think of LEGOLAND like a great big fair where everything is made out of lego that’s been hit with “The Cragle.” …

A wild botanical garden planted 80 something years ago on the edge of the swamp, Cypress Gardens is out of place. It’s not the juxtaposition of roses against tangling vines that doesn’t fit. It’s the loud design of the surrounding acres…

Florida likes its toll roads. Toll gates loom over every route, like giant metal bottlenecks in your destination game. For years we collected our coins and threw them at the toll basket at speeds becoming only professional basketball players come racecar drivers.

We are all circadian-geared to enjoy evenings more than mornings, so when we arrived on Hilton Head Island at 9:00pm we walked around the cozy streets smelling the sulphur air and listening to the scratch of palm trees. The chill stripped off like a zipper suit…

photo courtesy of disneysprings.com Shops, boutiques, cafes, live music and entertainment. My favourite place to eat in all of Orlando is Fulton's Crab House (an enormous ship permanently at port with multiple levels of seafood extravagance). But this is not outdone...

Miles of white sand, gentle waves, throngs of people. That's what Cocoa Beach is. For $10 each, we bought 3 body boards (available at Ron Jon but we got ours at a dollar store 5 minutes from the beach) and the kids filled my camera with shutter-priority action for two...

I can't think of Cocoa Beach without linking the Ron Jon Surf Shop to it. When you get tired of lounging on a beach towel, splayed like bacon, frying your skin to a crispy shade of golden-red (I'm not a fan of flaking out), you can take an air-conditioned break in the...

St. Augustine has an oldness to it. And there's a reason for that. It's the United States' oldest city, founded in 1565. Some say it is the most charming city in all of the USA as well. Cobble stone streets, weather-worn stone, and spanish moss hanging from big old...

A straight-shot east of Orlando, an hour by car, gets you to Playalinda Beach. Part of the Canaveral National Seashore, NASA launches rockets into space just below the beach. Isn't that cool? (No rocket launches the day we were there!) Open to the public daily between...

I'm a technology mom. But the best vacation toys are the old fashioned ones that were around before pixels: crayons and paper. sand and water. These "toys" do not require charging cables. They turn on that part of the brain that gets turned off too much these days....

Every year we stop and see something new on our way to Florida. We've explored Givhans State Park, South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. This year we explored a castle in Saint Augustine, Florida! It is a walk-in park (Adults $10.00,...

We didn't tell our kids that my sister and her family were stopping by for a visit. They had no idea that their cousins were even going to be in Florida. So when the doorbell rang and we opened the door..... it was screaming mayhem! After our ears stopped ringing and...

We went to visit friends in Clearwater Beach earlier this week. While we were there, I got a blue Lokai bracelet. Why did I buy this bracelet? Five reasons: #1. I like bracelets. #2. It was pretty. #3. It is made from some pretty cool materials. #4. It has a good...

We tried something a little different. We drove to the Circle B Bar Reserve half way between Orlando and Tampa on Lake Hancock. The drive into the Reserve is shady and beautiful because of the huge oak trees draped with moss. Very swampy!

Do you want to know what I like so much about Typhoon Lagoon that I bought an annual pass for the family even though we will only use it for one month? Well, for starters, it’s cheerful. It’s Disney, so the customer experience is top notch. …

Escaping to a beach is high on the average person's what-makes-you-happy list. But not all beaches are the same. We hopped in the van, spur of the moment, and drove east from Orlando for an hour until we crossed the bridge to Canaveral National Seashore....

You can get sun anywhere in Florida, but it's hard to beat getting it at Typhoon Lagoon. The beach music surfs into your ears as soon as you walk through the tiki huts at the front gate. The palm trees sway, and there are thousands of pounds of nuclear white sand...

Something of a southern thing, red velvet cake has become a Florida tradition. Its bright red colour caught Georgian’s eye when she was little and every year we give it its place in our fridge. The bright red colour comes from a whopping amount of red …

Click the picture to go to the Westin Savannah website... DAY 2 of the drive from Ontario. We stayed at the lovely Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa. Our salt-covered minivan looked out of place amongst the clean, new, un-minivan vehicles that loaded the...

We are away! We are leaving this -12°C behind. Snow is everywhere, everywhere—That unending white sheet that keeps all the branches black and all the flowers sleeping. We are ready for a little green. And a little orange. And a little teal! Our first stop?...

Surfer music playing in the background, weathered wood shacks with rusted corrugated tin roofs, sand for miles, palm trees, more water park slides and rides than you think could fit in that space, including George’s favourite, “Crushin’ Gusher.” …

The kids took part in another adventure. This time "Wilderness Explorers," earning badges throughout the park, as they learned about nature and how to take care of the planet. I love this park. It feels like you are hiking in the wilderness (... with thousands of...

"Turtle Talk with Crush" at Epcot took me by surprise. I thought it was going to be a one-way educational film narrated by Crush, the totally tubular turtle from Disney·Pixar's Finding Nemo. But it was interactive! George, Evie, and Grey sat with all the other...

I wasn't thrilled about the winter theme of Disney's Winter Summerland Mini Golf. But it was hot and sunny so I ignored all of the Christmas ornaments and painted ice and snow. We had an afternoon of fun......

We opened and closed Hollywood Studios. The girls got signatures from famous Disney characters, including Chip and Dale, Goofy, Pluto, and Phineas and Ferb! Grey was too shy to get any signatures until he saw Phineas and Ferb. Phineas got a big hug! We saw how...

Magic Kingdom was so busy, it felt like we were carving paths with our stroller. What to do when wait times for rides are 1-3 hours? Well, "A Pirate's Adventure" of course! On the far side of Adventure Land stands a not-well-known shack. You would miss it if your...

Stop #2 was Cocoa Beach on the east coast of Florida. Cocoa Beach is just south of Cape Canaveral, where the United States launches rockets into space! We got up our first morning there and it was cloudy but we went to the beach first thing anyway. We were the only...

My mom wanted to see Charleston, South Carolina on the way down to Florida. We stayed in a cabin in a park just outside of the city. My mom said she loved the architecture of Charleston. We loved the bunkbeds in the cabin! There were stairs that went down the hill...

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